9 March 2011
Squeezed by cotton prices at their highest level since the U.S. Civil War, clothing manufacturers are turning to a long–forgotten substitute: rayon. And that is causing a stir in Canada's long–suffering pulp and paper industry, which produces the feedstock for the fabric. According to Canadian Business, Chinese rayon producer Fulida Group Holdings has purchased the Neucel Specialty Cellulose mill in Port Alice, British Columbia, cementing the six year resuscitation of a community once on death row. Meanwhile, Fortress Paper Ltd is converting a money losing mill in Thurso, Quebec from producing northern hardwood bleached kraft to dissolving pulp, the bleached wood pulp of which rayon is made.Cotton remains the king of fabrics, representing 40% of the world's textile market. Its price nearly doubled in 2010, capping a decade of flat crop yields and rising demand. While rayon's price has jumped, too, it sells for around US$2.35 a yard today, compared to US$4 for cotton.
Coincidentally, the day after the Fulida announcement, the Forest Products Association of Canada issued a new study about the need to diversify products away from wood and paper in the new "Bio–Age." In the case of wearable wood fibre, though, it is mostly new money from outside the industry effecting that transition.
Source: Canadian Business